Page 4 of Blind Luck

“Then he goes on the suspect list. What’s his name?”

“Stanley Fuller. He has two sons, Jace and Jackson, and Jackson is the golf pro. For what it’s worth, Cole doesn’t think Stanley is a bad businessman. Apparently, he helped Perry—the general manager—right after Mike died, but he’s also a serial adulterer and loves the sound of his own voice.”

“Mike’s death was sudden?”

“He keeled over in his office.”

“Yikes,” I said, and Jerry glared at me. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. “Prickly” was the description that sprang to mind. Pretty and prickly. And also deadly, probably. Ari had met her working on a case in Portugal, and she said Jerry had been instructed not to kill anyone, an order she’d obeyed. But Ari also said Jerry seemed disappointed by that.

She moved on to yesterday’s incident, the one that had happened as I was tossing and turning and wondering what I’d forgotten to pack for the trip to Vegas. Perhaps I should have told Kai that Lucy McCall, one of Cole’s employees, had nearly been run over in the parking garage at the Galaxy, but then he would have convinced me not to go and I would’ve let Ari down. And I hated letting people down.

At least now we knew that the folks on Team Jimmy might be the violent type. After Lucy dove between two cars to get out of the way, the psycho behind the wheel reversed back to where she was lying with a broken arm and told her to tell her boss that this was his second warning, and he’d regret waiting for a third. That they’d get what was owed to them, no matter how many tricks he played.

The problem?

Nobody knew who “they” were, and just to make things even more complicated, Lucy had two bosses. She worked weekdays at the Galaxy and weekends at the Steel Horse Saloon. And the Steel Horse Saloon was owned by a biker gang who had their fair share of enemies, according to Jerry.

Oh, and Jerry’s team had run DNA analysis on the men who’d paid a visit to Cole’s house, and they thought two of them might be Russian. Boy, was I glad to be a sidekick and not an actual investigator.

Ari summed things up. “So there are two possibilities? Either Cole is the target and Jimmy is our main suspect, or you and Lucy McCall were the victims of unrelated attacks and Cole’s involvement is purely coincidental?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“What’s your gut telling you?”

Jerry considered the question for a moment. “I think Cole’s the target.”

“Why?”

“Originally, I figured the hit squad was after yours truly because that was the obvious assumption, and it would have been a good place to catch me—I was slightly drunk, potentially naked, and definitely distracted.” Whew. “Plus I have a permanent bullseye painted on my back. But I’m not easy to hit. Not to brag, but if a person was serious about taking me out, they’d have sent a better team.”

“Also, the attack was at Cole’s property.”

“That’s stating the obvious. We’ve installed cameras to monitor the yard, but if we need in-person surveillance, we’ll have to use a vehicle. There aren’t any vacant rentals nearby.”

“You checked Airbnb?”

Jerry gave Ari alook. “There are six suitable properties listed for short-term rent, and they’re all occupied right now. We have a reservation two streets away from next Friday in case we need it.”

“We can’t ignore Occam’s razor. I’ll agree that Cole seems the most likely target.”

“Which brings us to yesterday morning. The driver of the vehicle left a message for Lucy’s boss. She has two of those, but the incident happened at the Galaxy. If the message was for the Diamondback Devils, why didn’t they hit her at the Steel Horse?”

Ari’s turn with the look. “Because fifty angry bikers would have chased them down, but I take your point.Assuming Cole is the target, we need to work out why. Is it due to his involvement with the Galaxy, which has been brief? Or did he piss off somebody unconnected to the hotel?”

“He’s only lived in Vegas for a few months.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“Speak with Alexa—she background-checked him. But yes, his home is in San Gallicano, and he’s planning to return there.”

“We still need to dig into his personal life. He slept with you the first night you met, right? Did he check you were single? What if he pulled the same trick with another woman and stirred up a possessive boyfriend?”

“I came onto him, not the other way around.”

“On that occasion. While you’re hanging out, can you indulge in a little light interrogation?”

“I was planning to back off.”

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